The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for discovering non managed devices (e.g. devices that do not have an SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) agent) in a network such as a LAN (Local Area Network) or other network. The preferred embodiment of the present invention relates to the discovery of devices that do not have an SNMP agent but do include an embedded web agent.
The present invention relates to the process of discovery of the devices on network, that is a network of electronic devices comprising, for example, workstations, personal computers, servers, hubs, routers, bridges, switches, (hereinafter referred to as devices of the network), and links between these devices which may be in the form of physical cable or wireless links. The network may be a local area network (LAN), such as an Ethernet network, wide area network (WAN) or other types, including wireless networks.
Computers and other devices connected to a network may be managed or unmanaged devices. A managed device has processing capability, which enables it to monitor data traffic sent from, received at, and passing through the ports of the device. Monitored data associated with the ports of the network device is stored in memory on the network device. For example, data relating to the origin of a data packet which is received at a port is stored along with the identity of the relevant port.
After such a network has been installed, it is desirable for the person appointed network manager to be able to understand the technical operation of the network. In known network management systems, the manner in which the relevant data is retrieved from the managed devices, compiled and displayed “discovered” has been problematic in several respects. Primarily the data does not provide information about unmanaged (eg non SNMP enabled) devices.
The topology of the network may be deduced by the network manager's computer by the process of discovery in which each of the devices of the network is interrogated to thereby produce on a network manager's workstation details of the network and its operation, preferably in the form of a network map which may be displayed on a visual display unit showing the devices and links between the devices. At its simplest, and where the device is a “managed” device, this information is usually provided by interrogation using a known protocol, such as the SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol), of the so-called ‘agent’ of each device which stores the device's unique MAC address, the type of device and the MAC addresses embedded in the data passing into a particular port which thereby gives the MAC addresses of the origin of the data and hence the MAC address of the devices which are connected to the ports directly or indirectly.
Many devices are not SNMP enabled and so the discovery or interrogation of the network produces a result which indicates that these non SNMP enabled devices are displayed as “generic” devices.
It would be desirable if one were able to deduce more information about these generic devices, that is non-SNMP enabled devices, and the present invention provides a method of doing so.